Some happy fun time happened here, or just a lot of smoking.

The previous guests looked like they had a heck of a time. No evidence of hanky panky, but they did use everything (as evidenced by the drain stopper) as an ashtray. I did not take this room.

Then in our actual room, I looked at some of the ‘minibar’ items available for their guests:

Non-free? Damn, could have used the clippers and the box of condoms... wait wuh?

What the hell is this?

Yeah, there were condoms and some sort of spray provided in each room. Not saying it’s a love hotel, but all signs point to it.

The moment that all but confirmed my suspicions about the place was the night I returned to the hotel. I went up to my floor and there was hotel security walking around and the smell of…. marijuana? Considering the sentence for drug possession in China is… death, that was unreal.

Victoria Regal is cheap, relatively luxurious, and right by the famous West Lake. If you can deal with the shady ass things that goes on at night, it’s great place to stay in Hangzhou. Just find that dude that will share his weed.

Currently hanging on this hotel’s weak wifi to place this dispatch. Basically, in Mainland China: Twitter, blocked. Facebook, blocked. My site, not blocked.

I will have a real update when I get back to the land of the free later tonight. And by that I mean back to Hong Kong. I will tell you this. You have come over to China to see for yourself. You won’t regret it.

It was getting dark. I spent most of the run hoping incoming cars can see me. When I got to the balloting area, I couldn’t read the district map because I had no glasses. I looked like I was gonna collapse. Could barely give my signature through my gloves. Didn’t really know who I voted for. On my way back, it was pitch black. Cars were swerving out at the last moment. Now I know how it feels to be a deer.

Lesson: don’t run in the dark. But it was worth it.

It’s not how you look, but how you feel. Looking good is great. I myself spend way too much time looking at the mirror or walking around shirtless, but these are bonuses to working out. The most important thing is to feel good. It’s about feeling alive and energetic and be ready to tackle the day, including going to work feeling pumped. It’s going to be awhile and take a lot of work to get the body that you want, but feeling good happens after you finish your first workout.

You only need 4 minutes. No, you have time to workout. And thanks to brilliant Japanese scientists, you only need 4 minutes a day. Oh those 4 minutes are gonna suck, but here’s an example of what to do:

Mountain climbers and high knees are only one way of doing High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT), but the basics are to do basic exercises at max intensity in 8 20-second reps with 10 seconds of rest in between reps. You will be in a pool of your own sweat after 4 minutes. Obviously, there are different and more time-intensive workouts, but lack of time is not an excuse to not workout. Ever.

Spend wisely on equipment. I bought an Iron Gym. It cost me only $25 on Amazon. In addition to pull-ups, sit-ups and push-ups, you can do this:

I don’t recommend spending on weights just yet, since you will be doing mainly body weight exercises and cardio (lots of cardio) in the beginning. The best exercises can typically be done without any equipment. Screw the treadmill, go outside and run. But if you don’t feel like running outside, jump rope. And speaking of saving money,

Avoid the gym. Unless you are paying for a personal trainer or taking a class, save your money. To me, going to a gym means wasting time getting there and seeing my workout devolve into a social event. Unless you really need to do leg lifts on a roman chair, you will be better focused working out privately in your own abode.

Portion control. I love eating. One of things I refuse to compromise is the type of foods I can eat. Of course that means controlling how much of it to consume. You can order fries, but I recommend sharing a small.

Maintain an active lifestyle. As someone whose job and hobbies revolve around sitting around the computer, it’s important that you do your best to keep your body active. That means stand up and walk around often, run up those steps, or up the pace.

Have a measurable goal. I don’t mean hitting the scale or fitting into smaller pants. Those metrics are not as important as what you are able to achieve as a result of working out. In my case, my goal is to ace the United States Marines Personal Fitness Test. So that means at one point, I will be able to do 20 pull-ups, 100 crunches in 2 minutes, and run a 18:00 min 3 mile all within two hours. That means everything I do must lead to this goal. Whether your love handles melt away is not up to you, but being able to go for that extra push-up or squat is.

Have fun. I’m not saying every workout will be enjoyable, but some are. Don’t like running? Dance a little. If you have an opportunity to make working out feel less like work, go for it. You are a living being, time to feel like one.

If there is any advise I could tell bullying victims is to keep on living, cherish what you already have, and life will get better. I can relate. My experience was obviously not as tragic, but one time I was a freshman at Rutgers and I survived.

Entering freshman year, I was optimistic to leave the life of an introvert and nerd and be who I want to be. Unfortunately, at that time I still lacked the social skills to be able to flourish in a social environment of a college dormitory, so all those hopes and expectations went down the toilet pretty quickly.

Within two weeks, I was having trouble getting to class and keeping a schedule. Late night and early morning cram sessions became part of my year and beyond.

With a month, I was a target of some nasty pranks. I knew who it was, a neighbor two doors down, but was too passive to do anything about it.

Within six weeks, I had my heart ripped out of my chest by a girl living upstairs. I didn’t know at the time I was acting like a total wuss, so it stung pretty bad.

As the semester progressed, I was skipping classes and falling asleep in classes I do attend. I couldn’t stand my roommate, who was a drug dealing slob who managed to do worse than me in school.

I was a fighting a losing battle to turn the marching band from a glorified cheering section to something respectable. I’ve learned to accept their role since then but I was absolutely frustrated back then as a member with no seniority. Pep band, which was a glorified cheering section, wasn’t much better.

By the end of the first semester, my grades were crap, I hated going outside, and the pranks escalated from leaving garbage in my room to throwing directly it at me.

At this point, nothing went my way and I spent most of my days feeling like one angry motherf*cker.

Second semester wasn’t much better. I got rejected by two frats. My social skills were in the crapper. My grades went up but still struggled with attending class and staying awake. Also, it was this point I threaten to basically murder my prankster neighbor. I wanted to fight everyone, including my friends.

But despite all this, I never found myself wanting to end it all. As soon as freshman year ended, I was able to coast through the rest of college with a few ups and downs. A few things helped me through.

I maintained a personal blog (still up here, go through 2003-2004 for the juicy bits. Sorry for the design). I wrote about everything, I trashed whomever I pleased. There were repercussions for my writing from my targets but damn it was worth it. Also, blogging led to coding as a hobby. And that hobby has led to the career I have to today. I went from raging against life to raging against browser bugs.

I still hang out with a few of my friends I made freshman year to this day. I may have hated just about everyone at the time, but the few I didn’t hate I cherished. Anyone thinking about ending it and believing no one will care, you are very wrong.

In some ways I can understand the defendants’ perspective, as they were trying to survive too. One has to understand that bullying is a vicious cycle rather than a divided between bullies and the bullied. If you ever find yourself a target, don’t take it out on someone else and most definitely not think about suicide. If there is one thing my experience taught me is that everyday of living is a victory.

It’s unfortunate I nor anyone else was able to relay this to the victim. RIP.

So for 30-40 minutes a day, I am not thinking of my monthly budget, my performance at work, my relationships with my family, friends, co-workers, what I’m doing the next weekend, week, month, season. In that moment, whatever worries I have in life are nothing compared to cramps, leg pain, and oxygen deprivation.

I spent $85 on a pair of Nike Free 3.0 so I can run as close to barefoot as possible. But no matter what shoe I wear, when I run I am too busy getting from point A to point B to be stressful.

The shoes free my feet. The running frees my mind.

Ever since getting canned from my first full-time job, I’ve been working, if I’m working, like it’s the last day. There are some benefits. When there is a heavy workload I felt needed so I don’t feel pressured. And when the day comes when I’m no longer needed, I pack up and move on like it was nothing.

But then the opposite happens, I freak out when I find myself puttering around not doing much at my job. Today a co-worker pointed out that it looks like I’ve been taking it easy the last two days. He’s part right. No, I was working at a normal rate. However, compared to the rest of my co-workers, who all have long term projects that never seem to be completed (not their fault, it’s mainly feature creep from clients), I was having a pretty easy week.

The workflow at the office is mainly out of my control, but I still cannot help but feel I’m not doing my part nor feel good enough to keep my job. I find myself looking for something productive to do but for various reasons I can’t. It’s one thing to be an anonymous cog in a large corporation and ride it out, but I work in a tiny shop so there is no place to hide. Even though I work in a wonderful place I still feel everyday is my last, and no one but myself can convince me otherwise.

So what can I do about it? Work hard, lay off the distractions, don’t be a screw-up, be a pro, get better at my job, and earn the right to be in control of my own destiny for once. Easier said than done, and I have to demonstrate it everyday.

For all I know, it could be my last.

First jog attempt. 5 minutes running. 5 minutes of wheezing and coughing. 5 minutes of contemplating death. Not a bad start.

I was slow, I couldn’t run the entire thing, but I finished 5 weeks ahead of schedule.

I’ve long contemplated how to stay healthy at this point of life. Working out was high maintenance and marginally beneficial. Running was cheap and easily accessible. I take only 30-40 minute before or after work for a typical workout three times a week.

This was easily the best decision I made this year, more so than buying the right car (more on that later).

Plus, I have a whole lifetime to improve my time. The leader in this 5k was a middle-aged man who burned through a 6:35 mile pace! I can’t even run one mile that quick.

Today was a good day, and I wore my number as a badge of honor… until I exchanged it for free beer.

As Coach Schiano said, keep on choppin’.

I will have never have enough money to buy what I want, but I’ll be sure to earn every friendship I can get.